u/Comfortable_Fan_696

The Education Department announced Monday it has formally rescinded the Biden-era Title IX interpretation that gave sex-based discrimination protections to students on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.  . . .

I made a new video. Comment more scandals in the comments r other video topics youd like to see!

I'm on the board of my local community band. Our area has grown immensely in the last decade and we recently split the band because it was too large! Now the more advanced group is wanting to create strategies to move toward becoming semi-professional. We want to pay our players instead of requiring dues from them. If anyone here has been part of an orchestra or band that has made this move, whether you were a player or board member, can you share the steps you took?

We implemented auditions, then I finally convinced them to have us become a 501c3 organization but besides that and applying for one local grant, the other board members seem at a loss at what to do. They actually just raised the players' dues to cover some increased costs, which is exactly the opposite of what we need to be doing. I already know we are needing to fundraise A LOT, so I'm looking for other strategies.

I've left public education recently because of the madness involved in it. But one reason why I left was when I realized my principal was pulling the same good cop, bad cop on me that she does on the students.

This left me furious in part because A. It worked and B. It told me she doesn't actually want me to run my class room the way I saw fit. She wants an obedient little drone to fit in with the other drones.

This is why students aren't learning on the education side (not behavior). For all their talk about differentiating and all that crap, they want everyone reading the same script, going through the same lessons in the same methods and obeying whatever bullshit came out of the magic hat this week from the overpaid analyst who sold them magic beans and called it a solution.

The system has failed and will continue to fail so long as the goal of schools is obedience to authority rather than learning.

When investigative reporter Jasper Craven first dug into Valley Forge Military Academy five years ago, he uncovered an acrid strain of masculinity that was raw, violent, fiercely hierarchical, and quickly mutating out of control. Initially, he had assumed that military education was a dying, outmoded brand. But as he looked deeper, he found a sprawling, well-funded network featuring dozens of military schools, like Valley Forge and West Point, plus thousands of ROTC programs in public colleges and high schools that allowed the Pentagon to wield outsized power on education.

In an unflinching narrative, Craven explores how the military has come to define American masculinity and how it often fosters its most toxic traits. Beginning with the American Revolution, Craven shows how the birth of our nation required a new masculine ideal, crafted in the image of George Washington. During the brutality of the Civil War, Craven traces the parallel violence in military hazing culture and the deeply prejudicial culture at places like West Point, which reared Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and other famed Confederates.

The first and second World Wars escalated the need for battle-ready youth, and briefly resulted in a relatively noble male archetype, while the Cold War precipitated backlash, resentment, and trauma. This era also marked the beginning of the Christian right’s growing interest in military schools as upholding a patriarchal and fatalistic version of manhood. Vietnam and the antiwar movement fueled the rise of the “troubled teen” and the lying, lawless “operator,” embodied by graduates such as William Westmoreland and Oliver North.

As he chronicles the forever wars, Craven brings us up to today, where the military has further burrowed into civilian education. Meanwhile, policies like “don’t ask, don’t tell” and a campaign of Islamophobia, misogyny, and homophobia have crafted a new manhood that is defined by its ability to both diminish and dehumanize “the other” while also being self-destructive. Its exemplars include such military school graduates as Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth.

Part sweeping military history, part gripping journalistic investigation, God Forgives, Brothers Don’t lifts the veil on the harmful world of military schools and provides essential context and nuance to the ongoing debate on American masculinity.

Thanks for utterly sabotaging the job you’ve hired me to do, and making sure your kid shows up pissy, resentful and too overstimulated to focus on shit.

What a fantastic way to make sure that they NEVER develop an affinity for music and instead associate it as the thing that consistently takes them away from their fun-time dopamine rush. (some even throw full blown tantrums despite being in grade school)

No wonder most of them flame out after a few years or less having made glacially slow progress at best. (and naturally these types of parents usually aren’t enforcing any practicing either)

You suck.  That is all.

I'd like to think I'm fairly qualified. I've marched 3 seasons of college and a season of world class drum corps. I'm a music education major and consistently performed with the top ensembles at my university and with various semi-professional ensembles in the area. But I'm not entirely sure how to get my foot into the door to tech. I'm not sure who to reach out to, where to find openings, and how to make the right connections. Any advice is appreciated.

Our band director told us that Matt Harloff is coming to watch us and be our clinician for our show. Who is this guy? Why is he such a big deal? And what should i expect?

Hi, I'm not a band kid myself (I was in orchestra, sorry), but my little brother is. Sorry if this is the wrong place, I'm kind of at a loss for where to post this.

This past week was his first band camp with his high school marching band. He seemed to be having an okay time with the drills and the marching and the music, and I'm so happy for him. However, tonight was the last night of camp and the band (student) leadership threw a picnic dinner party of sorts. Food, games, normal stuff, until closer to the end.

It's about 9 pm at this point (I wasn't there but I've heard the story and watched videos of this happening), and the final finale of the night is the senior band kids giving speeches and passing the baton to freshman. Again, awesome stuff, but to get there everyone has to walk from the band room to the football field. On the way, there's a sort of rite of passage. It's clarified that it is not mandatory, but a majority of the freshman band kids participate. They are blindfolded and led to the football field by other band kids while excessive noise is played around them. Think car horns, drumsticks on parking signs, bass drums, etc. Without going into too much detail, I'll say that my brother was overwhelmed and chose not to participate.

Now, as a former orchestra kid, this feels weird to me. My question is, is this normal? This tradition has been going on for a while at this high school, and I've heard that the student leadership has advocated for it continuing. Again, is this normal? I may be seeing this as an extreme when it really isn't, but it radiates with peer pressure and I don't like that. Have you had a similar experience like this? Should I speak up and say this is weird?

This year, I was put in leadership and the way my school has done it is that leadership has a big hand in teaching our incoming freshmen. This year batch of freshmen brought me two tubas, two trombones, and three euphonium players. I cannot stress how happy I was to get this many new players. I am still so grateful to have gotten so many players to improve our sound. There is one slight issue though. One of the euph freshmen has some sort of learning disability and a slight disability with his posture (correct me if this is wrong way to refer to those with these issues. I’d rather not be disrespectful and ignorant.).

We had our first week of summer band back in May where we first met our new freshmen and taught them how to march. We usually have one week in many and won’t start the rest of summer band until July. I was trying to give all the new kids grace and not be crazy nit picky about marching when it was only a week, but the kid who I mentioned has the disability still looks the exact same as he did in May.

I’ve tried so many different ways to fix him and teach him how while also remaining patient and respectful while also treating him as another person, but nothing has seemingly worked. He’s relying on a lot of other people around him for and sort of visuals after I’ve worked with him alone on everything for hours. He’s can’t hold set at all without dropping his horn after 10 seconds. His marching technique and posture is, to be fair, really bad. I’ve been a little bit less strict with him to give him a chance to catch up, but he’s late on everything and it’s getting to the point where my director asked me for my opinion on potentially cutting him from the show because he’s lagging behind so badly.

I should say this now, he is not the only person with a disability in my section. Another one of my new kids has a similar problem, but without the physical disability. He also took a bit of time to catch up and get in the swing of things, but he ended up managing and is better than some of my sophomores and I cannot stress just how proud I am of him for being able to catch up. Is there any advice anyone can offer me here? I’ve been trying so hard to teach him and include him in everything and catch him up, but the idea of cutting him is slowly starting to make more sense just for the good of the section and for the band as a whole. Cutting him for his disability is that last thing I want to do. I feel extremely ableist and ignorant if that’s the reason why. It’s just that the more I see him slip up the same things I just got done working with him while the rest of the band progresses is am making me worried. What’s the advice from everyone? Please give me anything. I’d really rather not cut him, but if you all think it’s for the best, please tell me so. Thank you.

“The NFHS does not classify marching band as a sport because it considers marching band a performing arts and music education activity rather than an athletic competition,” says Jordan Morey, manager of communications and media relations at NFHS. “While marching band requires significant physical conditioning, teamwork and skill, the NFHS places it under its performing arts programs because its primary purpose is musical and artistic performance.”

https://substack.com/@christinabishop1/p-199454866

After my Discord account was disabled by a scammer named orlandohyatt, who wanted my bank account and a 200-dollar Apple Card, my therapist told me to find other communities outside of Discord. After doing much research, I discovered Kaboose, which I thought would be an alternative to Discord. Until I noticed there were a lot of videos and sessions that felt less like talking to my friends on Discord and more like group therapy. Chat rooms felt rigid, scheduled, and restricted for people like myself who want to make good friends, talk, and share my interests and feelings. Why does something so simple have to be made more complex with group therapy videos that make you feel at the end of the day like you cannot ever find community or good friends?